


How Rare and Beautiful it is (to even exist)

by swanqueenismagic



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash Fembruary 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 19:51:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17689799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanqueenismagic/pseuds/swanqueenismagic
Summary: The first time Sara meets her, she’s young and frightened... and dead.OrFive times that Sara Lance died, and one time that she stayed dead.





	How Rare and Beautiful it is (to even exist)

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no explanation for this. I just sat down to write day 6 of Femslash February and this is what happened. 
> 
> Just a heads up, but Sara dies (but like, only the times she’s died in canon, and also it’s mostly fine, so...)
> 
> As per usual, this is unedited because I’m an anxious stress ball who overthinks everything.

1.

The first time Sara meets her, she’s young and frightened... and dead. 

She was on the Queen’s Gambit and then the storm tore it apart. The water filling her lungs was so cold, she couldn't breathe as the world darkened into nothing.

Then the water in her lungs, the ocean writhing around her, is all gone and she’s awake. 

Sara whips her head around frantically as she tries to comprehend where she is, but there isn’t much to see. 

She’s in a bright white box, which she soon realizes is a room. There was a door, rooms have doors, so this had to be a room. 

It’s completely empty, except for a woman standing in the corner.

She’s tall and blonde, and she seems to glow along with the rest of the room. 

“Where am I?” Sara gasps out. 

“The place that comes after.” The woman’s voice is level and soothing when she answers.

“After _what?_ ” And then Sara realizes. “Oh… I- I drowned.”

It isn’t a question, but the woman nods confirmation. 

Sara feels her eyes well with tears, but they don’t fall. Something about the room seems to be soothing her. Seems to be making everything feel okay. 

“This is what happens after we die?” Sara asks, “Is this heaven, or…”

“This is the place that comes after,” the woman repeats. 

Realizing that it’s the only answer she’s going to get, Sara changes her tactic, “Who are you? _What_ are you?” 

“Ava.”

“Just Ava? That’s the only answer I get?”

Ava nods.

Sara glances around the room again before asking, “Where does the door go?”

Ava shifts slightly away from the corner, towards the center of the room, as she answers, “The place that comes next. I’ve come to take you there.” 

“What… what is it like in the place that comes next?” Sara asks, hesitantly. 

Ava shrugs, “You must see for yourself.”

There only seems to be one way out of this room, and she’s already dead anyways. What’s the worst that could happen?

Sara squares her shoulders as she says, “Alright then, take me. Let’s go.”

“I can’t.” Ava shakes her head.

“What? Why not.”

There’s a soft smile, if you could even call the slight twitch of Ava’s lips a smile, as she answers, “It’s not your time yet.” 

“But I drowned! I’m _dead_ , aren’t I?”

“Not quite.”

Sara wants to ask Ava what she means, but then the brightness of the room starts to fade into blackness.

It’s so dark, and then there’s bright light against Sara’s eyelids. She blinks her eyes open to see nothing but ocean around her, as she floats on a piece of wreckage. 

Later, Sara assumes that the amount of saltwater she swallowed caused her to hallucinate. Then she forgets altogether about the woman in the bright room. Sara has other things to worry about.

 

2.

“Hello again.”

The voice is familiar, and Sara blinks against the brightness of the room.

“Either I’m hallucinating again, or I wasn’t hallucinating the first time.” Sara groans as she sits up. 

There’s no real pain here, but there’s a lingering phantom of the pain that she’d just been feeling. 

Ava shrugs, “What do you think?”

“Honestly, after everything I’ve seen, I have no idea anymore,” Sara says as she shakes her head. “I tried so hard. I knew that if I didn’t get up off that beach I wouldn’t last long, but there was this gash in my leg and I think I hit my head…” Sara sighs, “At least I didn’t drown this time.”

Ava hums in agreement, but makes no move towards the door. She just continues to watch Sara from where she’s sitting on the floor across from her. 

There’s silence for a few moments, and then Sara tilts her head towards the door as she asks, “Are we going, or…”

Ava shakes her head.

“Let me guess,” Sara says, “It’s not my time yet. How many times do I have to die before it’s official.” 

“As many as it takes.” 

Sara glares at Ava slightly as she says, “For an all knowing spirit guide, or whatever you are, you’re _very_ vague and unhelpful.”

“I can’t give you answers that you aren’t ready for.”

“And what if I say I’m ready for them?” Sara crosses her arms.

“You aren’t,” Ava replies, simply.

The room starts to dim, the way it did last time. 

“I really don’t see how I’m going to make it out of this one. The only way I’m making it off that beach is if someone helps me, and who would even be on the island to find me?”

The last the Sara hears before the darkness pushes her back into the worlds is Ava saying, “You’ll see. _You’ll see._ ”

 

3.

Sara knows where she is, but she doesn’t bother to sit up or open her eyes as tears stream down her face. 

_“Sara!”_

She presses her palms to her eyes, trying to block out the memory of her sister screaming. 

She feels gentle hands squeeze her wrists, and she opens to see Ava leaning over her. 

Sara realizes it’s the first time that Ava has ever touched her, and it makes it all more real. 

“I-I’m really dead this time, aren’t I?” Sara asks in a quiet voice. It’s phrased as a question, but she already knows. 

Ava just smiles sadly and nods. 

“It was _terrible._ Is it that terrible for everyone?”

“No, not for everyone.”

“I guess I’m just very unlucky.” 

“Things happen how they’re meant to, luck doesn’t have much to do with it.”

Ava leans back and let’s go of Sara’s wrists as Sara slowly sits up.

Sara let’s the silence linger for a while before saying, “It is good to see a familiar face, I’m glad you’re here.” 

Ava smiles, that soft barely there smile. “It is good to see you too.” 

“So, _this_ is it? You’re finally going to take me… wherever it is that I go next?”

“No.” Ava says with a slight shake of her head. 

“Why not?” Sara demands, “I thought I was actually dead this time?”

“You are, but I can’t take you on, yet. I don’t know why, I just know that I can’t.”

“Am I going to be trapped here _forever?_ ” Sara asks in a small voice.

“No. Your time will come, you just have to be patient.”

Sara is afraid to ask, afraid of what the answer might be, but she does anyway, “Will you stay with me? I don’t… I don’t want to be alone.”

Ava nods. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

~~~~~~

Sara isn’t sure how long she stays in the room, it’s a place where time doesn’t seem to exist.

She sleeps, and dreams of unfamiliar faces, that she thinks are supposed to mean something to her. Slowly, the pieces of her start to dull until all she can remember of her life before is her own name.

Ava keeps her word, she stays. 

She talks to Sara in a quiet voice, and she watches over her while she sleeps. 

Sometimes, she even holds Sara.

It’s been the blink of an eye, and an eternity that she spent in that room with Ava, when something begins to itch beneath her skin. 

It’s a jarring feeling, after feeling nothing for so long.

When she asks Ava about it, Ava hums a noncommittal noise before wrapping her arms around Sara, her lips brushing against Sara’s forehead. “Just rest.” Ava murmurs. “You’ll understand soon.”

Sara’s sleep becomes fitful after that, and Ava holds her more often. 

It builds and _builds_ , until suddenly Sara begins to feel warm. She hears voices that don’t belong to Ava and the room begins to dim and lose focus. 

“What’s _happening_ to me?” Sara gasps. 

“You’re going back.” Ava replies, and the way she says it makes it sound so simple.

Sara shakes her head as she chokes out, “No, no I _can’t_ go back. I’ve been gone for so long. I can’t live in that world anymore.”

“You _can_.” Ava brushes tears away from Sara face, and Sara realizes that she’s crying for the first time in an eternity. “You can do this, Sara. They need you.”

“What about you? What am I going to do without you?”

“You’ll see me again.” Ava’s voice is beginning to fade. “I’m always with you, and I’ll be right here waiting, when you’re ready.”

Then Sara is awake, and real breaths are burning in her lungs. Everything is so bright and loud.

There are people all around her as she struggles to sit up. Faces begin to come into focus. 

Her… sister. Yes, she remembers now that she had a sister. _Laurel._ Laurel is her sister. 

And there’s a man’s face, seeing him prompts pieces of old memories to flash through her head. He taught her to ride a bike, he held her hand when he dropped her off for her first day of Kindergarten. Her father, this man is her father. 

She hugs them, because even though they are new to her, they aren’t really. And she had missed them. 

~~~~~~

The first few weeks are hard, as Sara feels herself settling back into her skin and bones. Her memories start to come back in pieces, but they almost feel like they don’t belong to her. It’s like she’s seeing flashes of a life that wasn’t hers, but some old friend that she used to know.

Her friend’s and family are gentle with her, or at least they try to be. The world is so solid and real, and not what Sara is used to. 

Eventually, Felicity is the one who brings it up. 

“What was it like? You know, when you were…” Felicity trails off, letting the question hang in the air. 

Sara remembers everything. How could she forget? Ava, her soft voice and even softer hands. But she can’t explain it, and she doesn’t really want to. 

Sara’s memories of Ava are hers, and she doesn’t want to tarnish them by bringing them into the light of day. 

After a pause, Sara finally says, “You know, I can’t really remember.”

They let it drop after that, and Sara keeps Ava stored at the back of her mind. Always there, always with her.

 

4.

It’s going to be brief this time, Sara can feel it. 

“Did you redecorate? I like what you’ve done with the place,” Sara jokes as she gestures around the unchanged room.

Ava just smiles and shakes her head, rolling her eyes slightly.

“I didn’t know other-worldly entities could roll their eyes. That doesn’t seem like the proper way to great the dead.” 

Ava laughs softly, “Well, you aren’t dead. Not really,” Ava pauses, then continues in a quieter voice, “and you’re different, anyways.” 

There’s so much _feeling_ in Ava’s words that it throws Sara slightly off balance. She deflects, slightly, by continuing with her joking, “Because I’ve died so many times? I’m really getting to be a pro at this.” 

“I suppose you are,” the laughter is still present in Ava’s voice when she replies.

“At least I mixed it up a bit this time. Gunshot wounds. Although I’m pretty sure Gideon is fixing me as we speak, I can tell I’m not staying this time.”

“No, you’re not,” Ava confirms, and then continues, “You seem happy, Sara.”

“I am,” Sara smiles as she thinks about the reason why, “I’ve found these people, a team. I know now that getting the chance to meet them is why I had to go back. They’re my family.”

Sara pauses, returning to her jokes would be the easy way out, but there’s something weighing on her and she needs to know… 

“My sister…” Sara clearers her throat before trying again, “My sister, Laurel, did she- did she pass through? Did _you…_ ” 

There’s a knowing look on Ava’s face, and Sara knows that she doesn’t need to finish her question. 

“I went to collect her, yes. She’s okay, Sara,” Ava smiles that familiar smile, “She loves you and she’s waiting for you, when you’re ready”

Sara’s throat feels tight when she says, “Thank you, Ava. _Thank you_ for being there for her.”

The room is starting to dim as it always does, and Sara knows she’s out of time. She doesn’t hesitate as she strides across the room and wraps her arms around Ava. 

Sara presses her nose into Ava’s neck as she whispers, _“I missed you.”_

Sara swears that she feels Ava’s arms tighten as Ava responds, “I missed you too.” 

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Hopefully not too soon. The world still needs you, Sara Lance.”

Sara doesn’t respond, she just holds Ava tighter, until she can’t anymore. 

 

5.

It’s not _really_ dying this time.

She’s an anachronism, the other her will continue living and breathing.

She isn’t really dying this time, just fading out to leave room for herself to continue on. 

She smiles at herself, the only other person who knows, as she says, “Remember, Legends never die.” 

As everything fades out, Sara sees a brief flash of Ava’s face, and feels a brief touch of a hand ghosting along her waist. 

It isn’t really dying and it isn’t her time yet, but when it is she knows that she’s ready for what comes next. 

 

+1

This is it. _This_ time is the last, Sara just knows.

She keeps her eyes closed for a few seconds, as she thinks about what just happened. 

Her heart hurts for her team. They had tried _so hard_ to save her, and had looked so devastated when they realized that it was futile. 

She’s going to miss them, but she knows they’ll be okay. They have each other, the _family_ that they had all built.

Sara finally opens her eyes as she sits up and then stands. 

When she sees Ava, she feels her heart warm and a smile break on her face. 

The sight of Ava standing next to the door confirms what Sara already knew. 

“This is really it?” Sara asks anyways. 

“Yes, it is.”

It doesn’t take long for Sara to close the distance between them, and then she’s pressing in to kiss Ava. 

Ava melts against her, a sigh shuddering through her body as if this is what she’d been waiting for. 

It feels like coming home, like a final puzzle piece sliding into place. 

When Sara pulls back, there’s a full smile splitting Ava’s face and she seems to glow even brighter. 

“Hi there,” Sara mutters.

“Hello yourself,” Ava laughs, and then tilts her head towards the door, “Are you ready?”

“When I walk through the door to… wherever I’m going, will you be there?”

Ava nods, _“Always.”_

Sara rests her hand on the doorknob, “Yeah, I’m ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> So... there’s that *insert shrug*
> 
> I’ve written Avalance for every day of Fem/Feb (except one) so far, and most of my wips are Avalance because I miss them! 
> 
> Hopefully some of you enjoyed this weird thing that my brain decided we were going to write?


End file.
